That's probably what they thought back then, too. We don't know what we don't know; this isn't some scifi story where we can make mistakes and still get a happy ending.
> That's probably what they thought back then, too.
Sure, after purging hundreds of thousands of "counterrevolutionary" scientists and other intellectuals.
We're in a slightly different scenario now. Our understanding of ecological impacts from this sort of action is well advanced past that of Maoist China. It may not be perfect, but it's certainly better.
I think the point is that every generation thinks they're smart enough to wield the powers of the day. Humans have been wrong many, many times about that presumption.
We can't look into the future to realize how much or little we actually know right now. You can only look back and remark on how foolish people were a few decades or centuries ago.
No, I suppose not. But it just sets off warning bells when someone says there's "no risk" in an endeavor that hasn't been tried before.
The only way to "undo" this I can think of is to introduce large enough swarms of natural mosquitos to overwhelm the population of GMO mosquitos. Now, you're worse off than before. So fingers crossed that it works. It'll be a great achievement though if it does.
